The UrbanWire

What’s Torchwood?

Literally, Torchwood is an anagram and spin-off of Doctor Who, the longest running science fiction TV show that spans 43 years and 723 episodes, according to the Guinness Book of Records 2007.

Torchwood is an unorthodox and highly classified organisation that specialises in alien crimes and technologies. The Torchwood Institute was started by Queen Victoria to safeguard the security and safety of the British Empire from extraterrestrial threats.

The secret organisation is responsible for covering up supernatural crimes so that the public would never know of the alien existence, which is an implausible topic to the society anyway. They manage to maintain this through the administration of memory-altering drugs or computer network interception to obliterate all traces of their existence to people who’re accidentally exposed to their operations. Torchwood takes precedence over the national police force when it comes to solving extraterrestrial related crimes. In the words of Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood is “outside the government, beyond the police”. Due to its conspiracy theories and exclusive job scope, it’s manned by a group of society mavericks who believe in aliens.

On a trivial note, the mysterious Torchwood quarters, also known as the Hub, is situated right underneath Norwegian plaza Roald Dahl Plass, which was named after the late Cardiff-born author, whose parents were Norwegian.

Who’s in Torchwood?

Besides its riveting storylines, Torchwood also boasts of an incredibly good-looking cast to keep the viewers’ attention glued to the screen. In season 1, Torchwood comprises a team of 5 people, where every member takes on a differentiated role; each one has a different expertise to contribute to the team.

At the top of the line is Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), the dashing and charismatic leader of Torchwood. He’s an American who belongs to the 51st century and has time-travelled to our era to protect civilians from supernatural crimes.

Dr. Owen Harper (Burn Gorman) is the boyish-looking medical officer in charge of conducting laboratory researches and unravelling the causes of supernatural occurrences. Arrogant and flirtatious, Harper’s a woman charmer.

Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) is the Asian face in the team. She’s the bespectacled computer specialist who handles massive and complex data processing.

Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) is the reserved gentleman in a suit who takes charge of all administrative work at Torchwood. He’s not involved in crime solving and takes a rather peripheral role in Torchwood.

Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) is the newest addition to the group after Suzie Costello (Indira Varma) committed suicide in the first episode of season 1. Gwen was in the police force when she discovered the operations of Torchwood at a crime scene and her workplace before becoming a part of the team. She’s the only normal person who’s attached to a boyfriend and capable of empathising with the human conditions when her colleagues are too busy guarding their identities and working for Torchwood. She’s easily the viewer’s favourite character as she gives a human perspective into team, thus striking a chord with people.

For mature audiences only!

Created by Russell T. Davies, the brain behind controversial TV programmes like Queer as Folk and The Second Coming that contain homosexual and atheistic material, it’s almost inevitable that Torchwood has Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgendered (LBGT) themes.

There’re scenes of passionate kissing between Owen and a man in season 1 episode 1. There are similar scenes between Gwen and a woman in episode 2 . Within the Torchwood team itself, there’s speculation among members about the sexual orientation of Captain Jack Harkness as being possibly gay or bisexual.

Produced by BBC Wales, Torchwood is made with the adult target audience in mind as it’s meant to be aired after 9 pm. As such, it’s liberal in its treatment of adult content and serves up as darker and racier than Doctor Who, which is children-friendly.

The controversy gets more intense with every episode. The second episode features a case of a teenager possessed by a succubus and shows a scene of steamy love making between the unwitting girl and a random guy in the ladies at a bar.

Set in charming modern day Cardiff, Wales, there’s an intriguing case to solve in every episode. Torchwood promises to keep you on the edge of your seat with its superb cast and witty humour. It’s favourably sexy and chilling, without being distasteful or trying. You’ll enjoy this show even if science fiction is not your cup of tea.

Rating: 7.5/10

Torchwood (Series 1) premieres Jul 7 from 8.05pm to 9:00pm (Singapore Time) on BBC Entertainment, Starhub Cable Channel 76.

All pictures via TV.com

Following the box office success of Borat, comes You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, another middle-eastern political satire with a generous dose of explicit sexual references. Unsurprisingly, Zohan, the protagonist, is Adam Sandler, the super comedian who’s starred in countless inane films like I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and 50 First Dates. Fans of the actor can look forward to seeing Sandler speaks middle-eastern accented English throughout the film.

The Plot

Zohan is a Jewish pacifier who was born with the body of a superhero. 3 years into serving the Israeli military against the Palestinians, he gets fed up with his job even though he’s been extremely adept at defending his country. (Read more)

Shush…it’s taboo

Beneath the everyday façade of normality is an unusual side of the human psyche waiting to be released behind closed doors.

Spousal abuse , Transsexuals , Paedophiles , Mental illness, Incest , Bigamy , Abortion, Elder abuse, Child abuse, Toy boys, Sexual harassment, Impotence, Geylang Girls .

We know they’re there, we’ve heard of them, or even experienced some ourselves. Yet, none of us is comfortable to talk about it with friends and colleagues for fear of offending someone or being judged for our moral ethics. In spite of it all, these are very real familial and personal issues that are happening in the privacy of our homes. The fact that these taboo topics aren’t widely acknowledged by ordinary members in the society doesn’t make them illegitimate problems. The existing law protects us from domestic violence or sexual harassment, provided that we’re aware of our rights, of course.

For Singapore , a conservative Asian Society that frowns upon deviant behaviours, it’s certainly a sign of social progress to have taboo materials highlighted on national TV.

Behind Closed Doors is the informative and educational 13-part series that brings these taboo issues to the glaring TV screen of every household, ending that long-term silence of sufferers and perpetrators.

By giving insight into social malaises, Behind Closed Doors serves to heighten public awareness of their occurrences in society. It’s a powerful tool towards gaining social recognition for taboos, as many might be hearing it for the first time. Plus, it could clear public misconceptions of these domestic issues and help bridge communication between the affected and their loved ones.

Deja Vu

If the concept of this show rings a bell in you, that’s because it’s been tried and tested in Tab TV 1 (hosted by Evelyn Tan) and 2 (hosted by Vernetta). Apparently, the response for both instalments of Tab TV was well enough to follow up with Behind Closed Doors with the same workable concept of tracking shameful and bizarre phenomena going on in Singapore. Unlike Tab TV, Behind Closed Doors is strictly about issues confined to home and not privy to the public.

Behind The Programme

Hosted by Class 95 deejay Vernetta Lopez , Behind Closed Doors explores a different issue each week. Two-thirds of the 30-min programme is devoted to drama illustration of the issue, followed by a Question and Answer (Q & A) session that is tackled by a panel that may comprise a lawyer, psychologist, counsellor and victim.

Don’t expect a celebrity-studded cast for the drama. Rather, plain and ordinary people are chosen to convey the message that these less than glamorous problems can happen to anybody and at the most mundane of places, i.e. at home. It’s set in the heartlands or most notably inside HDB flats – the most common dwelling in Singapore. It’s worthy to note that the actors and actresses have acquitted themselves well in the acting department, despite being non-professionals.

Where direction of photography is concerned, UrbanWire notes how the director combines 2 camera takes at 1 frame to show there’s interaction going on between the host and guest during the Q & A session.

Music-wise, it is apt that Behind Closed Doors chooses rap music for its theme song, as the rap genre is infamous for giving blunt and graphic opinions about society.

It’s rare that Channel 5 allocates airtime to such candid discussion of taboo issues that we mightn’t dare broach it ourselves. Behind Closed Doors is definitely worth your 30 minutes that would otherwise be wasted on watching another dumbed-down Hollywood drama.

Behind Closed Doors is shown on Channel 5 every Tuesday at 10pm from June 10 onwards

It is subbed in Chinese and Malay.

With a title like The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce, you’d expect good fortune for Francis Wilberforce, instead of a tale of his downward spiral from a successful computer engineer at the peak of his career to an alcoholic shunned by society.

A Tale In Rewind

Paul Torday’s sophomore novel after Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. It is a first-person narrative written regressively and categorised into four years: 2006, 2004, 2003 and 2002.

When the story begins in 2006 we see 38-year-old Wilberforce, a jobless alcoholic-in-denial, with his life in shambles. His body is suffering the detrimental effects of cumulative intensive wine consumption and he’s close to death. Wilberforce’s misery is compounded by the mounting debts he incurred by squandering a few thousand pounds on a bottle of wine. (Read more)

Speed Racer is an exhilarating family adventure about extreme automobile racing. Complete with eye-popping, CGI effects and human actors shot completely in front of a green screen, it was directed by the Wachowski brothers , the ones who brought us the mind-boggling Matrix Trilogy . Speed Racer regained popularity in the 1990s when the anime series was rehashed on MTV. Die-hard Fans of Tatsuo Yoshida’s Mach Go Go Go , a Japanese anime which Speed Racer was based on, must not miss this big-screen adaptation of the 4-decade-old anime.

The Plot

Speed Racer is played by Emile Hirsch , a talented 23 year-old Californian actor, as a racer passionate about the sport that runs in his family. His brother, Rex (Scott Porter ), a pro racer who won many competitions, met an untimely death while racing at the Casa Cristo 5000. The tragedy impacted Speed (Emile Hirsch) profoundly and he strived to be more successful than his brother to make the deceased proud and to complete his brother’s unfinished business. (Read more)

“He shaves often, while I don’t”, says Dino jokingly as a response to the question of how to differentiate him from Julio, his twin brother and other half of Hong Kong-based rock band, Soler. Jokes aside, UrbanWire speaks to the twins, who are the fastest band in musical history to have their debut concert in the prestigious Hong Kong Coliseum, during their 5-day promotion beginning Jan 20 in Singapore for their latest release, X2.

Nothing but Musicians

The brothers’ Italian and Burmese origins are clearly visible in their exotic looks. Verbal communication is not a problem as they can converse in 7 languages, namely English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French, but even if they couldn’t their charisma would carry them far. Born and raised in Macau, they burst into the music scene in 2005 with their debut album, Double Stereo. They may not have been in the business long, but already they’re sure this is exactly what they want to do. “If we’re not musicians now, we’ll be trying to be musician,” said Julio, the elder brother, showing their passion and enthusiasm for music.

Double Treat

Although X2 is their third studio album, it’s their first with 2 CDs, one in English and the other in Mandarin, meaning 19 songs in 2 languages. SOLER feels that it’s easier and less time-consuming to present both sides of their music to fans this way. Answering the questions in English or Mandarin, Julio said that many of their family and friends loved their English songs after listening to the few English tracks featured in their past albums.

SOLER is not only comfortable with singing in both English and Mandarin, they are also adept at performing in various countries, like Europe, which they visited in the past few years. In fact, they try to learn from each local music scene. Explained Dino in Mandarin, “The songs we write now are more towards the Chinese music scene as we’ve been [in Hong Kong] for a long time, so I think we’ve absorbed quite a lot to contribute to the Chinese style in our music.”

While many bands hanker after the underground or alternative label, SOLER wants to be known as a mainstream band. “Our main objective is to communicate with the audience and only a limited group of people will listen to us if our music was to be non-mainstream,” Dino continued in Mandarin. “Although we are a rock band, we try to present our songs more towards the pop genre. Many people might think that our ‘band sound’ will be categorised as underground but I think we can try to change the mindset.”

X2, a Live Experience

The whole album is recorded to give an experience of a live performance. “The first thing we hope to achieve in this album is to entice the audiences to come and see us perform live,” Dino said. SOLER hopes to collaborate with popular R&B singer Gary Cao and Hong Kong pop star Justin Lo in the near future, hopefully performing with them, in their world tour soon.

X2, All About Communication

“Secondly, we hope that our songs motivate our listeners to communicate more with their family and friends,” said Julio, who values family ties dearly. In this album, SOLER puts the focus on communication and family. They wrote a song “Hey, Ma” for their mother and “Saving Grace” for their father. “I think that nowadays, many people are listening to love songs and seldom do they get to listen to songs about family. I think that there is a need to have more songs on the topic of kinship,” Julio elaborated.

“Dino also wrote a song, “Brothers” for me, telling how he helped me through a dark period of my life,” Julio described in Mandarin.

According to Dino, Julio lost his direction in life a few years ago and stopped contacting his family and friends. “If you have siblings you would know what I mean when there’s sudden lost of someone so close to you. So I decided to write a song to tell him what my thoughts are and how I feel,” Dino said.

Julio pointed out several role models who share their belief that you can strike a balance between work in show business and family: “Chris Martin is a great husband and Sting has 6 kids.”

He added, “I think that no matter how famous you are or if you have to travel for performances; as long as there’s love… you can still have a beautiful family. So I don’t have many worries about it,” He added.

SOLER, Jack of All Trades

Their multi-lingual ability translates into a similarly wide music diet, SOLER listens to almost every genre of music. From radio tunes to Bossa nova, it seems like there’s almost nothing that they don’t listen to as they amaze UrbanWire with the list of singers and musicians that they love listening to.

Although SOLER doesn’t mind working with different genres of music, they intend to keep their music simple. “We tend to go for an almost naïve, kind of music. We want to keep it like that. We like the naivety in our songs, the simple melodies, [which are] closer to folk songs.” explained Dino in English. “We will include our own lives in our songs in a way that our audience can relate to.”

And unlike many other bands, artistic differences don’t seem to bother the two. Julio thinks, “It might be because we have been writing songs since young and we listen to the same genres of music. It’s hard to quarrel like that.”

Singapore, Not Just another Country

To many artistes, Singapore may just be another country that they come to for promotional tours. But to SOLER, it’s more than that. They have several friends and families who live in Singapore and have lots of connections in this small island. “It’s a great place to be in, physically also,” Dino commented.

They’re especially pleased with Singaporean courtesy. “There’re rude people everywhere… but the percentage seems to be a lot lower [here],” Dino said.

If you’re a fan of SOLER, you’ve got to loosen up as the duo thinks that their fans are too shy. They revealed that they always chat with their fans at events, starting with greetings like ‘Hello, how are you’. But they’re expecting more than that in the future. “I can’t wait to tease Singapore fans,” Julio said. That’s something they hope to achieve with their fans – building real relationships.

X2, A New Start

Previously involved in a contract dispute, SOLER is now back on track with a local company, Funkie Monkies (FM), as the first overseas artiste that FM have signed. “They are a singer-songwriter based company and we are singer-songwriters,” Dino said.

SOLER was full of praise for their new partner, saying “[They are] a company that understands [our] mindset and what it means to be a musician today.” SOLER promised that we’ll be seeing more of them in Singapore in the near future.

Interested to know more about the charming brothers? Check out SOLER’s official blog or visit them at their MySpace.

She says she’s not an author but her book reads perfectly. She writes with expressions so beautifully detailed and packed with meaning and history that they mimic the poetic idioms of the Chinese.

She tells a story of a life fraught with adventure, emotional turmoil and finally peace that she’s found with her 3 children and German husband.

Her name is Jin Xing and Shanghai Tango is her story.

It’s a story about a young boy in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Dance Troupe who grew up to be a man who couldn’t find himself until he became a woman, a prima ballerina, a mother and a wife. (Read more)